


The Impossible Planet

by ChromeHoplite



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Companion!Lance, Demonic Possession, Doctor Who Crossover, Doctor!Keith, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, black holes, fucking in space, red!TARDIS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:41:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29162835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromeHoplite/pseuds/ChromeHoplite
Summary: There are a lot of things you need to get across the universe: warp drive, wormholes, a sentient lion, a police box... but the thing you need most is a hand to hold.Lance is the Doctor’s latest companion.*This fic is based on the Doctor Who episodes: The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit*
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Peekaboodesu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peekaboodesu/gifts).



> Dedicated to my favourite human in all of time & space
> 
>   
> 
> 
> By: [@arryadne on Tumblr](https://arryadne.tumblr.com/)  
> Characters (c) Voltron Legendary Defender

The TARDIS touched down with her onomatopoeic _vworp vworp_ , announcing to whoever was in the vicinity that he and Lance had arrived to... how did Lance put it? Right… To ‘ _Fuck shit up_.’

This time, there was no audience; better yet, no army to hold them at gunpoint when a strange, red police box materialized out of nowhere. 

“Atta girl,” Keith said, coming out first, gently pressing the back of his hand to the TARDIS’s windowpane the way a parent would a sick child to take its temperature. “She was a little resistant to land, wasn’t she? Maybe the stardust is different around here?” 

Keith fished his glasses out from the inside of his suit jacket and put them on the way he usually did when he got scientific. He stuck out his finger, swiping it through the air and brought it to his lips. “Okay, a little… metallic, I guess. Like drinking orange juice out of a stainless steel cup. I mean, it’s gross, but it shouldn’t cause indigestion or anything...” 

The analogy made Lance shudder. The face he pulled was, as always, adorable. In all of time and space, Keith had never seen one quite like it. Eyes so honest they put the goddess Veritas to shame. Bluer than any sky, any ocean, and set in a beautiful, tanned freckled face. Nowhere in the universe had he seen a more perfect arrangement of stars or a better constellation that spoke to a fraction of the bravery and valour Lance possessed. 

“Maybe,” Lance said, a smirk dancing at the corner of his lips, “she thinks it’ll be too scary here. We could always get back inside and go somewhere safer?” 

They broke out in laughter; lance clutching at Keith’s shoulder as he nearly bent over double, Keith irresistibly touching Lance because he could. 

Their happy sounds didn’t echo at all, and when Lance straightened up, Keith was the one to bring attention to it. 

“It’s quite the squish in here,” he pointed out, trying to gauge where they were. The only hint was the large, yellow ‘6’ stencilled on the wall over the door. 

“As if you mind,” Lance retorted, pressing himself against the Timelord. Deftly, he unbuttoned Keith’s red blazer so that he could _feel_ him, wrap his arms around his body, unobstructed by more fabric than necessary. 

“Not against the TARDIS, Lance,” Keith said, grinning as Lance pulled his face closer with a yank of his tie. “She’s alive. Would you ever have sex _against_ your sibling?”

“It’s not sex… yet. I just want a kiss,” Lance breathed hot against his mouth. Even after all this time, his lips still trembled. Anticipation rather than apprehension. 

And they were soft. Warm. As gentle as water. As yielding. But brutal enough to chip away at anything that stood in its path.

How could Keith ever deny him anything? He flipped them, pressing Lance so hard against the wall that air wooshed out of his lungs and into Keith’s mouth as he kissed him hard. 

Lance said he saw stars behind his eyes when they kissed. Keith only saw Lance. Felt him too. Hard and soft all at once. The heady heat accumulated in the small space. His hands found Lance’s rib cage, thumbs moving over his ribs one at a time as Lance gasped, drawing breath. In times like these, Keith always forgot Lance couldn’t hold his breath as long, but he refused to stop kissing him now, opting to drag his mouth against the side of Lance’s neck. 

Lance gripped him tighter, fingers curling into his shirt under his jacket. Keith picked him up and as he ground into him involuntarily, Lance wrapped his legs around his waist. 

“I…” _pant_ “thought…” _pant_ “you said no…” Lance tried to speak.

“Shh,” Keith mumbled with Lance’s sensitive skin between his teeth, sucking a nebulous mark at the base of his neck. 

As he did, Lance jerked pleasurably and accidentally smacked a button. 

“Open Door Storage Area Six,” an automated voice said.

“Whaa—” 

Making out against a door meant spilling out into an unknown hallway; Lance on his ass, Keith positioned on top of him. Flushed, they surveyed the area to make sure they weren’t seen. Not because they were embarrassed by what they’d been doing; it was more like that reflexive thing people did when they tripped over their own feet in public. Try as Keith might, he had never found a word for that. He supposed the onus was on him to come up with something, but he couldn’t be bothered when Lance was pinned under him. 

“Close Door Storage Area Six,” the automated voice instructed, closing the door behind them. 

Keith stood, offering his hand to Lance. “Looks like some kind of base. Not sure where though.” 

There were no windows per se. Whatever material had been used was a semi-transparent metal alloy, enough to perceive light, but not enough to let it through. At the moment, warm, bright flashes of fire writhed just beyond the protective barrier. 

“Reminds me of when my sister used to make a blanket fort at night to read. All I’d see is her flashlight moving underneath,” Lance said, walking beside Keith. 

“Well, this thing’ll be better than a blanket fort. Listen to that storm,” Keith said. 

And now that he’d brought it up, it was hard to ignore. Something like solar flares seemed to lash as their cover. High winds bombarded the shelter. 

Lance shoved his hand into Keith’s back pocket as they walked the hallway. The metal grate underfoot clanged as they did, the sound of it competing with their conversation and the raging storm. 

“Been to lots of these,” Keith explained. “Dead simple to install bases like this when they’re already pre-fabricated.” 

“Open Door 17,” the automated voice said. 

“Yeah, but how do you carry something this big aboard a shuttle?” Lance asked, stepping over the threshold of Door 17. “I mean, how big is this thing?” 

“Close Door 17.” 

“Oh, could be half a mile, or this could be it,” Keith said, grabbing Lance by the back of the jacket as he missed the first step of three that led into a new room. At the very least, it kept him from falling down the next few. 

“Oof,” Lance exclaimed, finding his footing again when they reached the floor. “It’s homey, I guess.” 

Not quite, thought Keith. The room was no bigger than a living area. Drab. Painted in concrete grey with yellow accents: yellow metal door, giant yellow 3 posted near the door, a yellow table with matching chairs and another yellow door kiddie corner from where they stood. 

“We’re really far out. This is a sanctuary base. People work here,” Keith said.

“Doing what though?” As always, Lance made himself at home, already exploring their new whereabouts. Probably looking for a memento to bring back to his mom. Something with a date on it or a location. She had converted Lance’s room to a museum of sorts to display all her new treasures. 

Keith shrugged. “Dunno. Could be anything really. Likely mining something.” 

“How do you know?” Lance asked, not looking up as he riffled through a stack of papers that had been left on the table. 

“Listen. Drilling,” Keith said, coming up behind Lance. He wrapped his arms around his waist and looked over his shoulder. Frowning, he took the topmost page. He couldn’t make out the symbols that span the whole thing. Vertically. Very few spaces were left to delineate words, if there were any. _Curious._

“This is Hell,” Lance said nonchalantly. 

Keith rolled his eyes and kissed Lance on the cheek. “That’s what you said about Taujeer. Stop exaggerating. I swear, if you weren’t so handsome, I’d—”

“No, look,” Lance said, pointing to the wall where the exit door was located. 

“This is Hell,” Lance read again. 

How had Keith missed that? The words were in big, bold, black letters. Sloppy. Painted in a shaky hand. They were accompanied by the same script that had been on those pages. 

“What’s it say?” Lance asked, pulling Keith toward the foreign alien writing. He took a knee before it, running a hand over the symbols as if it would help him understand them better. 

“I have no idea.”

Lance’s left eyebrow shot up. “How is that possible? Doesn’t the TARDIS translate everything into English? You don’t think it’s broken, do you? God, it better not be broken. It’s my sister’s birthday Saturday and if I’m not there, my mom’s going to get her Gucci chancla out and—”

“Time And Relative Dimensions in Space, Lance. The TARDIS is a _Time Machine_. If we’re late, we can just scoot back. I’m sure whatever it is, I can repair it. It’s just weird.” He was sullen, crouching like Lance before the script, viewing it with his glasses on, then off. “But if it’s not broken, that means this,” he touched a symbol, “is super old. Ridiculously old.”

“Open Door 19.”

“We better see if there’s anyone here. If this is too old for the TARDIS,” he said, already getting up and pulling on the exit door, “we might be… Ahh!”

The surprise was simultaneous. Both Keith and Lance startled as the door opened to reveal three aliens. In fact, they were so close to the door, they seemed to have been waiting for it to be pulled open. 

They were not frightening, but their diseased-looking skin was a lot to take in all at once. It was not only their skin that looked afflicted; tumours seemed to sprout here and there on their bodies, two of which hid under dark, skull-protecting cartilage. Their eyes were serpentine, closer to the sides than the center, and a sickly shade of rotting lemons. 

“Oh! H-hello,” Lance greeted first in his friendly demeanour. He flushed. He knew what his mother would say about displaying this kind of rude xenophobic ignorance. “You took us by surprise.”

“You have a lovely base,” Keith chuckled nervously, ears growing hotter. “It’s uh...”

“Hungry,” the aliens recited in unison, taking a step forward and forcing Keith and Lance to retreat. 

“Pardon?” Keith asked.

“Hungry.”

Lance got behind Keith, squeezing his arm. “Not for us, right? They don’t look like carnivores, right, Keith?”

They did, Keith thought. Their jaws were just large enough, and with their massive underbites and clawed fingers, they could tear through flesh, no problem. 

“Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.” 

Because the room was larger than the closet they’d emerged from, the words _did_ echo. And loudly. 

“Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.” There weren’t only three anymore. A parade of these aliens followed the initial greeters. More spilled from the door from which he and Lance had come in. 

“Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.” 

The voices were robotic. Monotone. Mindless even. That made it scarier. 

Lance picked up one of the yellow chairs, ready to use it like a lion-tamer. Keith withdrew his sonic screwdriver from his breast pocket, standing protectively in front of Lance. 

The nearest alien extended a hand toward them. 

“You brought us to a zombie planet!” Lance hissed. 

Keith wondered if he was the one that Lance wanted to clobber with the chair. 

The aliens continued their warbled chant of _Hungry_ , backing Lance and Keith against the wall with the script. All at once, they shook their head, like a punch-drunk prizefighter. 

“Hungry,” the nearest alien said. Except, this time, it was a question. “Are you hungry?”

“Whaaa—” Lance exhaled, putting the chair down and dropping into it.

Keith knew the feeling. His legs felt like jelly too.

“May we offer you something to drink? To eat?” 

“Um…” 

“We’re sorry. The storm outside has interfered with our…” 

“Open Door 17.” 

Whatever the alien was about to say was cut short by three humans barging into the room. 

“What the bloody hell!” The leader exclaimed, eyes bulging. The aliens moved aside making a direct path for him and his two companions to the newcomers. He was a middle-aged man with hair and a moustache as bright as fire. 

He stopped inches in front of Keith, eyeing him incredulously as he brought his wrist to his face. Shock kept him from blinking. Awe made him speak quickly. 

“Captain. There are intruders in the base,” he said into his wrist comm.

“What? Impossible.” The captain scoffed. 

“Nope. They’re here.” The man sucker-punched Keith hard in the arm. His lined face tightened in amazement as he made contact. “They’re real. Two of them. Right here in Habitation 3.” 

Static went over the airway as a strong gale blew against the northern side of the base. “Is it April first? Is this the best you can come up with?” 

“I don’t think people take well to being called a joke, Captain.” 

Lance certainly didn’t. Whatever nerve had faltered a minute ago came back and with a vengeance. He pushed Keith aside exaggeratedly, going toe to toe with the guy wearing the wrist comm. “Cut the shit. I think you’re all pulling our legs here. What kind of base doesn’t get visitors?” 

“Easy space cowboy,” Keith whispered in a smile, putting his hand on Lance’s shoulder. He really ought to get the boy a leash with a collar. A nice leather one to match his —

“Wait, you mean, you don’t know where you are?” The orange-haired man asked. His colleagues balked behind him, exchanging skeptical looks. 

“No clue. That’s the fun of it,” Keith said, bouncing on the balls of his feet, face lit up like a kid on Christmas. 

A young man’s voice came over the speakers. “Get somewhere safe. Quick. Got a quake point five coming.” 

Keith and Lance glanced at one another, mouthing _quake point five_ , both assuming that it couldn’t be good. 

“This way, hurry,” the leader instructed, leading them, plus his company, through the door and down a new hallway. 

The walls shook. Hell, the floors shook too. It felt like being on a rickety bridge that spans two peaks. Twice, Lance caught himself on Keith, who caught himself on a convenient beam when he was pushed into it. Overhead, sirens blared, lights flickered off and on. Steam rose from the metal grates underfoot. Everyone, including the leader, used the wall to keep their balance. Everyone, including the leader, gave a shriek when overhead bangs and the sound of breaking metal came too close. 

“Hurry. Keep moving!” The leader shouted over the din, ushering them none too gently into a larger room. 

Lance was cautious this time when descending the four steps that lead into a room full of people working at a variety of control panels. 

This new room was well-insulated and barred at least eighty percent of the noise from following them in. 

Despite the chaos, the individuals manning the many desks froze, mouths slacking, eyes blinking disbelievingly. 

“You… you weren’t lying,” said a tall man who sported a shock of white hair amidst a head full of black. Where was his planet? He could have been Atlas with a frame like that!

“They’re real,” a younger man said, walking around them like they were an art exhibit. He actually poked Keith. “They’re really real.” 

“There’s only one person that gets to poke me here, and it’s him,” Keith muttered, pointing to Lance. 

“I have a name,” Lance admonished, holding his hand out to the baby-faced, floppy-haired boy who’d just poked Keith. “Lance McClain. This grumpy guy is Keith.” 

A tall, burly man pushed himself off his chair with a grunt and crossed the room to the central command station in five steps. His orange bandana swept his dark hair back so that his eyes were prominently featured on his kind face. “What have the Balmerans been feeding us? We must be hallucinating. This is impossible!” 

The first guy, ‘ _Atlas_ ’, commanded everyone’s attention with a resounding whistle. “Hallucination or not, the quake’s still real and it’s coming in twenty, nineteen, eighteen…”

One of the aliens approached Lance, “You will want to hold onto something.”

Lance turned immediately to Keith and held on tight. 

“Not him,” Atlas said, “something stable.” 

Lance didn’t relent his hold. Keith secured himself along the wall so Lance wouldn’t have to let go, wrapping his arms around the wrung of a ladder that led to a second story. 

“Where are we anyhow?” Keith asked conversationally as everyone fought to keep upright, going about their business as they had prior to their arrival. 

A teenage girl, not much older than Lance, whose appearance was strikingly similar to Babyface, cocked her head in disbelief. “You really have no idea where you are?” 

“Get ready!” Atlas called. 

The room shook. Babyface fell out of his chair. Bandana was reciting some kind of mantra as he clung to the whole console before him. Keith swayed violently. Lance’s nails dug into him – which under any other circumstance he wouldn’t have minded – who was he kidding? He still didn’t mind. 

Everything except for the alarm stopped long enough for Lance to say, “Well that wasn’t so bad,” when the room convulsed again, stronger than before, throwing them to the floor. 

A floorboard to Keith’s left shot out, introducing a small blaze to the panic. Smoke issued from at least half the computerized panels. 

As the shaking acquiesced, Babyface and the orange-haired man each pried a fire extinguisher from the wall and fought the flames. 

Lance got a mouthful, sputtered and immediately took to scrubbing his tongue with the hem of Keith’s jacket. 

Once the room stopped and the fire was out, Atlas spoke up again. “That was a big one. Are we all good? Pidge?”

“Yeah,” the teenage girl said, righting her glasses that had gone askew during the quake. 

“Hunk?” 

Bandana groaned before putting his head into a bucket to get sick. 

“That’s as good as we can expect, I guess,” Atlas said. “Allura?” 

“Mhmm, good,” a pretty, elvish young woman tucked away across the room gave a weak thumbs up. 

“Matt?” 

“Fine!” Babyface answered as he scribbled notes on the fire extinguisher. 

“Coran?”

“Here!” 

“We’re good too, in case you wanted to know,” Keith said, coming up gingerly to his feet. He offered Lance a hand, but he refused it vehemently. He was rather pale after the whole incidence. 

Atlas ignored them, too busy looking up at a monitor over his head. It showed a map, a layout of the base. Most of it was a dull fluorescent green, but a good chunk of the base was blinking in red. “Damn it. There’s been a massive cave-in. Storage five through eight - they’re gone. Completely. Allura, go make sure the rocket is secure.” 

“That’s not my job,” Allura protested with a sharp lift of her chin. Her voice was like chimes, soft to the ears, but discordant in her defiance. 

“I’m not asking,” Atlas responded, standing up. He was clearly in command here. 

Allura huffed, throwing her long white hair over her shoulder and pushed past him and Lance. 

“Oxygen’s good now,” Pidge said, taking a reading from her computer. She could barely be heard over the sound of high winds still attacking the shelter. 

“That quake was one thing, but that’s one storm you have going on. Is it hurricane season here?” Lance asked from where he sat. 

Matt moved next to Pidge to log some numbers off her screen. “A hurricane would be nice,” he said. “A hurricane needs warm, moist air. There’s no air here. Like at all. We’re sitting in a complete vacuum.” 

“Impossible. What’s all that wind then?” Lance argued. 

Behind her large glasses, Pidge’s eyebrows shot up. “Here I thought you’ve been joking this whole time, but you’re not?”

Lance and Keith shook their heads. 

“Okay then,” Pidge slapped her hands together. “Lemme give you a rundown of what’s what. I’m Pidge Holt, Science Officer. Over there,” she nodded toward Atlas, “is Takashi Shirogane, acting Captain.”

“Just Shiro,” the captain interjected. 

“Shiro, sir,” Pidge corrected herself. “That’s Coran,” she continued pointing to the first person they met, “he’s Head of Security. Hunk is our Ethics Committee—”

“I swear it’s not as lame as it sounds,” Bandana interrupted. 

“And the woman who just left was Allura, Archeology expert.” She clapped an arm around Babyface, who was still at her side, “And this is my big brother Matt. Maintenance.” 

“It’s nice to make your acquaintance, but where are we?” Keith insisted. The suspense had been killing him and the facts didn’t add up. No atmosphere. TARDIS unable to read a foreign language. _Humans_ this far out? Being a thousand-year-old Timelord who’d travelled all of time and space meant you weren’t often surprised. 

For once, he wanted to be surprised. 

“I’m getting there, I’m getting there,” Pidge said, pulling a lever next to the door that led away from the control room. “This is Home.” 

Shiro’s expression was one of displeasure. “Perhaps some warning instead of just springing it on them, Pidge?” 

Keith’s heartbeats accelerated. “Why’s that?” he asked Shiro. 

Overhead, the roof split in half, retreating slowly to opposite sides. 

“Because the sight of it makes people go mad,” Shiro said simply. 

Keith put on his glasses. Ready for the madness. Lance peeked between his fingers. 

“That’s,” Lance started, going mute as he finally stood to be at Keith’s side.

Immensely dense. Angry like nothing Keith had ever seen in life. A white-hot disc surrounded by fire, flecked with black dots and an inescapable center. 

“Holy fuck! It’s a black hole,” Lance said under his breath to Keith, both hands over his mouth. 

“That’s absurd, it can’t be!” Keith said. Everyone else was going about their business as if this was the most banal thing they’d ever seen. 

“I did caution you,” Shiro said flatly. 

“We’re here. Under a black hole? For real?” Keith asked. 

“You’re here, under a black hold in orbit!” Pidge amended pedantically. 

“No way.” Keith had seen a lot of things, but to be stationed outside of a black hole and not to be pulled in by its accretion disc? Impossible. Nothing escaped a black hole. Not even light! 

“Ever read Arthur C. Clarke?” Pidge asked. 

“Who hasn’t?” Keith answered. Lance nudged him hard in the ribs. 

“In one of his sci-fi books, he posited that there was this thing called ‘geostationary orbits’.” 

“English?” Lance said, frowning. 

“Orbits that have a period of one day,” Keith explained patiently as if describing the weather on any given day, “don’t seem to move at all. It’s fixed in the sky.” 

“I knew that,” Lance scoffed. 

Pidge nodded, grateful for Keith’s explanation, but suspicious of Lance’s understanding. “Yeah, so this base is geostationary. Perpetually suspended by a black hole and not falling in.” 

“Should have gotten back on that TARDIS, right?” Lance asked Keith, but his eyes were stuck, wide with anxiety or wonder, on the black hole. 

Keith rubbed the back of his neck, eyes focused on Lance’s face, even with the sight that met them. “Maybe. It just doesn’t make sense. A black hole is a collapsed star. It folds in on itself until it’s so dense it starts to pull everything else in its reach, and then some. Light. Time. Gravity. Everything.” 

“Us?” 

“Definitely us,” Keith affirmed, finding Lance’s sweaty hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. 

Pidge sighed.“Except not you. Because we’re here aren’t we? And the black hole is there,” she nodded skywards. “This defies every Law of Physics known to man.” 

“What’s that stuff there, then? Those black specs?” Lance asked Pidge this time. 

“The Universe, breaking apart. Those are planets, whole solar systems and stars being pulled into that thing before they cease to exist altogether.” 

“Really wish it was a hurricane now,” Lance said, taking a nearby vacant seat. 

“You don’t say,” Matt laughed as the room shook again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update! Thanks to those of you who left a comment & a kudos! 
> 
> Enjoy!

As the floor rumbled, Allura held fast to a beam running the length of Hallway 28 to stay on her feet. Once things settled down, she tucked a series of scrolls under her arm and took long, half-jogging strides to get back to her work station where everyone else was assembled. 

“Allura,” a disembodied voice called out to her in a whisper. 

There it was again. It had been calling out to her for weeks. Her stomach fluttered uncomfortably. She held her breath, gulping each one down to conceal her fear. 

“Hunk?” she muttered, even though she knew it wasn’t him. Hunk was much too softhearted to have such a sinister voice. 

Her eyes darted from side to side. She spun on the spot, took a few steps back to look behind a supporting column. The lights flickered. The storm outside raged on. 

“Hunk?”

***

“Open Door 1.”

Lance saw Allura walk in, arms full of yellowed paper. She looked frazzled, as if she’d seen a ghost; which was impossible, he reminded himself. Aliens, yes. Ghosts, no. 

“Close Door 1.” 

“Everything’s alright with the rocket,” Allura said, putting down her scrolls and joining everyone around the center console where Shiro had called up a hologram. 

Lance leaned in to listen. Keith sat next to him, glasses on in full nerd mode. Maybe it was because he was a Timelord, or maybe it was because he was hundreds of years old (and robbing the cradle), but Keith’s face was hard to read on a good day. Right now, he could have been enthralled or bored. The only way Lance knew the difference was the deathgrip Keith had around his fingers. Keith was definitely into this. 

“So, this is it,” Shiro said, using his fingers to stretch out the hologram for everyone to see. “This is our black hole. We designated it Omega Comet ---”

“Wait! You said it was a black hole!” Lance interjected. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep the hint of accusation from his tone. Forgive him for having slightly panicked upon seeing an insatiable monster gobbling up solar systems. 

Pidge silenced him with a look. “For all intents and purposes, it _behaves_ like a black hole.”

“Yeah. In the scriptures they left behind, the inhabitants called this planet _Kroptor_ , that means, _The Bitter Pill_ ,” Allura explained, unfurling one of her scrolls. “The story says that this black hole is actually a demon that was hoodwinked into eating a poisonous planet. In the end, it spit the planet back out. That’s why it doesn’t want this one anymore.” 

“A little dramatic to call a planet a bitter pill, but go off,” Lance commented. 

Keith finally spoke up. “This is almost as far out as you can go in space. How did you end up here? Did you get lost? Are you descendants of the former inhabitants?”

Shiro pressed a button that displayed the planet and a series of space drifts that led up to it. “We actually got here by rocket. You see this?” He traced one of the purple drifts with his finger, “It’s a gravity field that holds its own against the black hole. Almost like a current in the ocean. Anyhow, like turtles, we hopped in and here we are.” 

“I love turtles,” Lance muttered, suddenly feeling homesick. If Keith felt like leaving soon, he wouldn’t complain. The company here wasn’t stellar (ha!) and the idea of watching other people’s homes get devoured wasn’t his idea of a good time. 

“Your ship should have been torn apart,” Keith said, still in awe. He walked around the hologram, taking it in from different angles. 

“That’s how we lost Captain Iverson. I’m his protege.” 

“And you’re doing a great job, Shiro,” Pidge piped up with a gentle smile and a clap on the back. 

Shiro shrugged modestly. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say.” 

“But if that drift closes,” Keith started.

“Then we’ve got no gravity,” Hunk said. 

“Or a way out,” Pidge added. “That was a fun talk.” 

“Right. _Fun_ ,” Coran rejoined making air quotations. 

“Other than the TARDIS, I don’t know what else could produce that kind of energy, or… power. Do you mind if I poke around?” 

“Go nuts,” Pidge said with a flourish of her hand.

Keith already had his sonic out. Lance could hear it beeping and woowoowooing from across the room. Bearing the resemblance of a screwdriver without a shank, it was half-tool, half-defensive weapon, great for opening doors, disarming people, tracking alien life, modifying devices and shattering glass. Lance suspected it could probably reverse polarities, but he’d yet to see it in person. 

Whatever it was, however it was made, it was incredible since it was an extension of Keith. Not by way of limbs or anything tangible. But there was something alchemical about it. Like Keith. Full of beautiful contradictions. Dangerous in the wrong hands. And too good to be true. 

“Here’s your drink.” 

“Wha—” Lance startled when a plastic cup was pushed into his hands. It was warm and brought back some of the life that shock had stolen from them. “Oh, thanks. Sorry, I didn’t get your name when we met in the other room.” 

“We are Balmeran,” the alien said, with an affable nod.

Lance took a sip of his cup. It coated the walls of his throat soothingly. “Is that like a royal _we_?”

“Have you been living under a rock?” Hunk asked. 

“No, I’ve just never seen a Bal..” Shit. He was terrible with names. 

“Balmeran? You’re kidding me? Everyone’s got one. They’re great for mine work, maintenance, dirty jobs... Made for it, actually,” Hunk explained, accepting a drink of his own. 

“Like slaves?” 

Matt rolled his eyes dramatically, but not maliciously. “Oh boy. You’re one of those, are you? Alliance To End the Domestication of the Balmerans?” 

Lance’s temper flared and he choked on an uncomfortable swallow. “Might be. How the hell is slavery still _a thing_ in this day and age? Why can’t you do that work?” 

“Oh, no no no, not like that,” Hunk backpedaled. “They enjoy it. Love being told what to do.” 

“Like House Elves?” Lance quirked an eyebrow. 

“Like what?” Hunk and Matt asked simultaneously. 

“Nevermind.” 

“We do enjoy it, Sir,” the Balmeran agreed. “This is all we have.” 

Lance put down his cup. Its contents didn’t taste as good anymore. “I thought that way too, before I met Keith.” 

He left to go in search of Keith who was rambling on, now that he was in his element. Otherwise, Keith was the quiet type - well, only when it mattered. 

“Here you go,” Keith said, giving the control panel a flash of his sonic. It glowed violet, absorbing the information. “In order to maintain that gravity field, it’s necessary to have a power tower of at least six Knuth’s up-arrows to the power of six for every six hydrogen atoms.”

“Nice, six-six-six,” Lance said, making small horns on his head with his pinkies. 

Keith swatted Lance’s fingers down. “Not nice, it’s all but impossible to keep up.” 

“That literally took us two years to figure out,” Shiro said, amazed. 

“Yeah, he’s good like that,” Lance said with a smirk and a slap on Keith’s rear. 

“So why are you here, then?” Keith asked. The tips of his ears had gone pink and a beautiful flush had spread over his nose and cheeks. It was worth building him up like this just to see how flustered he got. It was the only way to properly extort his praise kink in public. 

“Trying to figure out the power source. The base is sitting in the deepest crater of Kroptor and we think the source of the drift is ten miles down,” Pidge said. 

“Through solid rock,” Shiro added. “The BR-C9 readings are off the scale, so there’s definitely something there.” 

Keith nodded, nudging Lance. His amaranthine eyes twinkled, their message clear, _I told you so_. “You’re drilling?” 

“Mhmm. If we find it, it could totally change the way we do science,” Pidge said excitedly. She had the same manic expression Keith had when he discovered something new. On the Timelord it was endearing. On anyone else it was just… creepy. 

Hunk was nodding fervently. “That kind of power could fuel planets!” Clearly they’d already discussed all the possibilities. 

Except one. 

“Or start wars,” Keith said, ominously. They all turned to look at him. Matt chewed the inside of his cheek, considering those words. Shiro’s face took on a pained expression. 

“It’s been buried too long. It’s waiting for us in the darkness to be freed,” Allura said with a thousand-mile stare. 

Lance blanched. He was known for saying his fair share of stupid stuff, but, come on, lady. “Is that part of your job description as an archeologist? Scaring the shit out of everyone?” 

Allura pressed on, passionately. “People lived here, ages ago. While humans were still pond scum. Don’t for one second think whatever is down there is natural. It can’t be.” 

“Did you write that stuff on the walls then? Those symbols?” Keith asked, eyebrows furrowing as he crossed his arms and leaned back against the nearest wall. 

“Every time we uncover something while drilling, I copy it down before it’s lost. I don’t understand a damn thing it’s saying though. Even with all my books. It has no root in any language - dead or alive.” Her passion turned to frustration and she made a fist around the paper she’d been holding. 

“Yeah, I can’t decipher anything either,” Keith sighed, equally frustrated. 

“And that’s saying something,” Lance said. 

“Don’t you feel it reaching out to us now? There’s a presence and it’s calling us.” 

Coran wrapped a sympathetic arm around her slender shoulders. He had such a protective air about him. Shiro might have been the captain, but Coran was like the dad of the group. “You work too hard, Allura. Right now the only thing that’s calling you is a good night’s sleep. Why don’t I get the Balmerans to make you a warm drink and take you to–”

But Keith interrupted, still ruminating on Allura’s words. He stared unabashedly at them. “And you came out here to answer its call?” 

Shiro turned off the hologram and Keith pushed off the wall. He was grinning. He was impressed. And Lance knew exactly what was coming. 

Keith was obsessed with humans the way some people were obsessed with their pets. Not in a condescending manner. He was the kind that would give his pets birthdays and parties. Have more than one phone to store all the pictures he took of them. He would show them proudly to his friends, who would be annoyed by the amount he went on about them. Keith didn’t see humans as _lesser_ , just as fascinating with endless potentiality. ‘That’s why I like having you around’ he’d told Lance. ‘ _You fascinate me like no other._ ’

“I mean, yeah,” Pidge affirmed hotly, having mistaken Keith’s tone. “You can’t pass up an opportunity like this!” 

“Of course you can’t! And do you know why? Because you’re humans.” He hugged Hunk who was the closest to him. “And that’s what you do!” Keith said. “You’re brave and brilliant and curious.” 

“Yeah!” Matt exclaimed with Coran, lifting their respective cups to Keith. 

“And suicidal,” Keith added, pausing to collect his thoughts, his lips pursed dramatically. “Mad, even. You really should just go back home. This is dangerous.” 

“Hark who’s talking,” Pidge accused. “How did you two get here?” 

“Right. We’ve got our own means of conveyance. Temperamental thing at times. Hard to explain, really,” Keith blabbered. He was talking with his hands now. 

That’s when Lance cut him off; if he got on the topic of his TARDIS, he’d never shut up. “We parked it in a closet. Closet um…”

A look passed between Lance and Keith. 

“Three. Closet three,” Keith supplied, finally. 

“Storage Six, you mean?” Shiro clarified, eyes widening. 

“Yeah that’s the one, Storage Six.” 

The silence that fell was profound. Nobody met their eyes. Shiro’s teeth made an audible grinding sound. 

“You said, Storage Five to Eight… Fuck.” Keith turned tail and yanked the door open to the hallway. 

Lance went after him, not knowing why yet. All he needed to know was that when Keith ran, he had better keep up. 

“Why are we running?” He called under the sound of their feet banging against the metal grates. The storm outside had not lessened and either the sound buried Lance’s plea or Keith was too panicked to answer. Lance really hoped it was the first option. The second never boded well. 

Door after door opened and closed for them as they ran from one hallway to the next. They crossed the room where they’d met the aliens and were too quick for that door to open. 

“Hurry, come on!” Keith ordered it as he used his sonic to speed things up. 

It opened with a hiss, concealing another of the Timelord’s curses. 

The last door refused to open. 

“Door Storage Area Six is out of commission.”

No amount of kicking, hitting or sonic pried it open. 

“Door Storage Area Six is out of commission.” 

“Tell me what’s wrong!” Lance demanded, pulling at his arm so that he didn’t smash his fist into the metal again. “It’s okay. The TARDIS is in there.” 

Keith looked out the porthole built into the door. He was shaking his head. Disbelief froze the rest of his body so that he was a statue. 

“It’s not there, Lance.”

“What the hell do you mean it’s not there. That’s where we parked it.” Lance pushed Keith aside, maybe a little more roughly than he’d wanted. 

A wasteland. That’s what was left of Storage Area Six. An oasis of black against black in all its varieties: charcoal, onyx, slate and obsidian. Shadowed protuberances from the dark crater in which they found themselves. 

Keith cleared his throat. Once. Twice. “The quake destroyed this whole section.”

“It collapsed?” 

He didn’t see Keith nod, but he knew he was. The way his voice had cracked meant words weren’t coming easily. “Whatever you do, don’t look down.” 

Challenged, albeit unintentionally, Lance stood on his tippy toes and saw what Keith meant. That section of the crater was clean gone. The door from which they peered was now at the edge of a cliff. 

Hand in hand, they walked back to the control room, solemnly. At times, Keith faltered, dragging his feet against the grates. Lance kept him from falling on his face twice. Offered to carry him piggyback style. He was waiting for the rebuff when Keith finally accepted. 

“Come on,” Lance said, lowering his center of gravity. “Make sure you don’t bang your head when you jump up.” 

Once on, Keith wrapped his legs around Lance’s midsection and his arm around his neck. He nuzzled his face near Lance’s ear, inhaling him. Lance counted out loud for him, metronome-like to stabilize Keith’s breathing. “Breathe out,” he instructed, “five, four, three, two, one. Breathe in…” until against his back, Lance felt Keith’s two hearts slow.

Lance let Keith slide down outside the control room and give him time to compose himself before they entered. The room was a flurry of activity, but Keith was the eye of the storm, heading for Shiro. 

“My TARDIS fell when the ground collapsed. It must be right at the heart of the mine now. You’ve got drills positioned that way, right?” 

“Not exactly,” Shiro said, not lifting his eyes from the monitor where he examined the damage of the storm from other angles. “We can’t take a chance and start diverting our mission in case the drift closes.” 

“But I need my TARDIS,” Keith countered. He was upset, but not taking it out on the captain, understanding the predicament Shiro was in. He’d probably do the same if he had a crew relying on him. But he had Lance, and that was worth more than a billion crews. “Is there anything I can say to change your mind?” 

Regretfully, Shiro pursed his lips. “No, I’m sorry. Your ship’s gone. If we ever get out of here, I can take you back with us, but that’s about it.”

Shiro walked away, and with him so did Hunk, Allura, Matt and Coran. Pidge approached them before following with a similar apologetic look on her face. “Since you’re crew now, I’ll put you on our duty list. We need someone to take care of stuff like laundry and washrooms.” 

She left too, giving Lance and Keith a moment to themselves. 

Keith sat on the console and pulled Lance between his legs, holding him tight. He leaned his head on Lance’s shoulder, muffling his voice. “This is my fault. You’re stuck here and it’s my fault.” 

“Don’t worry about me for now. We’ll be fine, right? We’ll figure something out?”

Keith didn’t answer and the silence seemed to echo in the room, louder than the drilling underneath and the rumbling storm overhead.

A tremor passed through Lance, rocking him momentarily from head to foot. Keith held him tighter. 

“Nevermind. We’re on an impossible planet that may or may not get sucked up by a black hole. Forget what I said earlier, you can worry about me now.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos & comments are always welcome!


End file.
